Working on Living that Dream

Tag: exercise

Mornings around here are never the same.. Andrew and I don’t always have the same days off, we work different shifts everyday, head up the mountain some mornings, sleep in until 8:30 others (that’s quite late for us!).

When I get a morning off though, and don’t pick up my snowboard, I have a little bit of a routine. I’ll usually wake up around 7 am, grab half a banana and flick through instagram (I KNOW, contradicting my last post – but I love checking in with what’s happening back home!).

I workout for 30 minutes to an hour, depending on the day. I’ve been following these ladies for a couple of years now, and it’s so nice having a little guide to follow with their Daily Workout.

Then, it’s the best time of the day… BREAKFAST AND COFFFFFEEEEEEE. I’ll grab a bowl of oats, put on a Spotify playlist (currently loving Happy Folk) and sit down to read over a few blogs. Cup of Jo and Love Taza are favourites of mine.

If I have time, I’ll do some yoga (with Adriene) before getting ready for work. As the days are getting warmer, I can start getting out for walks and hopefully runs again once the ice melts and there’s a much smaller chance of me stacking it and falling on my face.

Not every morning is the same, and I love that about living here, but when I get this routine in, I feel good!

My apologies dear friends and readers, for I have been off the grid this week. I started my new job (!!!) and it’s been keeping me pretty damn busy. This week has been mostly working a 11am – 7pm shift, taking home goodies, plonking down on the couch and falling asleep. This ole body ain’t used to active working!

It’s good though, I’m really enjoying the work so far. The days go quick, the staff are awesome and I go home smelling like butter and sugar… I’m going to get so fat working here!

To counteract my freebies, I’ve been trying to maintain an exercise regime. My days off are dedicated to getting out on the bike and trying some new walking/hiking trails. Before work though, I’ve been getting up before the rest of Whistler and hitting the pavement.

I love Whistler in the early morning. For a town where nothing opens until 10am and everyone my age leads a rather party kind of lifestyle, if I get out for a run at 8am I’ll only see a handful of people out and about. It’s such a nice way to start the day and clear the mind before a full day of work.

Do you ever get in a funk? Like this little cloud is just chilling above your head, giving you all kinds of stormy moods and cloudy thoughts.

This has been happening to me lately, particularly with riding. No matter what I was trying, I hadn’t had a good run for so long. Even when we went road tripping down south and got to check out some beautiful new tracks, I just couldn’t get in the right head space. To be honest, with the impending Canada move at the back of my mind, I was getting a little stressed out.

I can’t handle being bad at something. If I’m not nailing it, I usually give up and move onto something within my reach… Until Andrew and mountain biking came along. His persistant encouragement and gentle coaching have pushed me out of my comfort zone and into this crazy, adrenalin fuelled sport.

Margaret River, such a beauty

I learn at my own pace, and will never move onto the next step unless I am confident and have learned every aspect. It must be so frustrating to watch, and even worse to ride after me, but Andrew does it all without complaining. Actually, I lie, he complains when I don’t have a good time and am too hard on myself. What a guy, right?

Even with this support behind me, I’d just not enjoyed it lately. I’ve been getting scared and frustrated with my thoughts taking over. It’s been super dry in Perth lately, which definitely doesn’t help. So I decided to take a week off and get back to me.

My handsome coach

Today, I woke up itching to ride. I wanted to get back out there and give it another go. My head was in the right place and I was feeling pretty relaxed. Which was a godsend, my ride was so much fun! The uphills weren’t killing me, the downhills didn’t shake me too much and I managed to get some PBs knocked out. More importantly though, I was smiling.

Riding in Pemberton, probably before a hill because I’m still smiling!

I don’t know if every ride will be like this, or if I’ll ever make it past this stage of riding. But, I think I’m okay with that. As long as I get some really good days in, I’m prepared to try and overcome the bad ones.

Life’s a little better today, endorphins do not suck at all. Little victories make me pretty happy too, so I’ll keep at it.

I’m so tired, and have been all weekend. I’m grumpy and feeling sluggish. My skin is not my best friend at all, and I have definitely added a little holiday weight onto my body.

All because of sugar!

On the 16th of November, The Jungle Body (my exercise saviour) started a 6 week pre-Christmas challenge. 6 weeks of cleaning eating, 30 minutes of exercise a day with ab challenges throughout the week.

Unfortunately, December is probably the worst month for me to attempt this (I know; excuses, excuses) but between my birthday, my Christmas party, Andrew’s Christmas party and our girl’s Christmas lunch I just couldn’t envisage seeing this challenge through in it’s entirety. I did however, want to give it decent go on the days that I could.

Which I did, until my birthday last Wednesday, and Christmas party last Friday, when I ate cake 5 days in a row…

I have no regrets at all, I really wanted sticky date pudding on my birthday, so I made one. I organised these amazing cupcakes for the party, so I ate some. I don’t eat like this every day, and I will get back on track with any issues. Sometimes, you do need to indulge a little.

I found this week to be a very interesting experiment. After almost two weeks of clean eating (god I hate that term, but it is what it is), it shocked me how quickly I became addicted to sugar. For the first two weeks I was only eating fresh fruits and vegetables, lean protein, low carbohydrates and healthy fats. No refined sugar, no white carbohydrates, no alcohol, limited dairy and caffeine.

After two days of eating sticky date pudding and cupcakes, I already began craving sugar all time. I’d feel the 3:30pm slump and need something sweet to get me through. Which would work, for about half an hour. Then the tiredness, the headaches and the moodiness would set in.

We all know the affects of sugar, I’m not going to reiterate or lecture you about how bad it is for our bodies. I just thought this week was fascinating, and so scary. I’ve woken up today feeling so exhausted, but determined to get my body back on track; starting with a Konga class tonight and plenty of healthy food throughout the day.

I’m happy to indulge once in a while, but this week has reinforced that life is all about balance and it’s so easy to slip into bad habits. Each to their own of course, you know what works best for your body, just as I am learning what’s working for mine.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, enjoy the holidays because we all deserve a decent break, but look after yourselves too! The human body is pretty incredible, and it deserves to be treated well.

Lately, my aim has been to get healthier and fitter. Which has probably been my aim for about 10 years now…
In the past few months though, I’ve shifted my focus towards living a healthier life in general, as opposed to trying to lose weight, and it seems to be working!

2. Netball
Even though it can be quite brutal, I love this game. A few of my favourite girls and I started a casual team years ago, and after a little break, we’re back at it. The Sweaty Betty’s tend to, uh… not win a lot of our games, but we try so hard and have a lot of fun. I’ve recently begun playing in GD, which means more running than I’m used to – but I am loving it!

3. BodyWise Appwww.bodywiseapp.comI literally downloaded this yesterday, so this recommendation may be completely false. However, I like all the aspects – being able to log workouts, rating how happy you are everyday and the way you can track what you’re eating.
Instead of counting calories, which can be an excruciating activity, it tracks your vegetable/fruit/meat/grains intake, as well as caffeine/junk food/alcohol/soft drink intake. This is such a healthier way to look at what you’re eating!

4. Tone It Upwww.toneitup.com @toneitup Tone It Up – YouTubeOkay, so these two are super perky. There… I’ve warned you.
HOWEVER – take a look at their bodies and you can see why I put up with the perkiness. The workouts they upload to their youtube channel are serious business. Give the HIIT a try and you won’t know what hiit you 😉
I love these workouts for rainy days, or post-run when I want to work a little harder. One day I’ll have abs like them!

5. MY NEW BIKEYep, I did it. I’ve committed to this mountain biking thing and gotten my very own bike. She’s so beautiful and all I can think about is taking her out on the weekend! Wish me luck…

27 degrees and sunny, on a winter’s day. Are you joking? But also, how amazing!
God, I love a Perth winter. Saturday was absolutely glorious, and Sunday didn’t disappoint either.

So what does a gal do with all this sun? Soak it UPPPPP!
Papa Bell asked me kindly to housesit his place while he and Melissa flew to Broome for the weekend.
As his house is a 5 minute walk from the beach, I’m so glad I didn’t turn this offer down. After waking up early (cheers Andrew) I took myself for a little beach stroll, breathing in the fresh air and stretching my legs. I came back to a very sad looking dog, begging to be taken out… so I went for another walk. On a day like this, I couldn’t resist!

Look at that face! I hate these kind of dogs, but Sparki is so beautifully ugly – with a huge underbite and disproportioned body, it’s so hard not to love him!
Until he steals one of your socks, develops lock jaw and then cries like a baby because he doesn’t know what to do with it.

The rest of the day was equally as blissful, celebrating a dear friend’s birthday over delicious breakfast and incredible coffee.

Laura chose the new spot Finlay and Sons for her special day, and it couldn’t have been more perfect. I can see this becoming my new favourite local. A full menu with too many choices, coffee I knocked back in about 30 seconds, and the most gorgeous, aesthetically pleasing interiors make this girl very happy.

Just look at that rose gold and exposed brick; love love love!
The staff are lovely, and the food is divine. I caved to my standard order of bircher muesli, and was not disappointed in the slightest.

Anh’s mushrooms on goat’s cheese toast looked and smelt unbelievable, the truffle oil wafting in my direction almost gave me food envy. I can’t wait to come back here!

The birthday girl, what a doll! Happy Birthday LB, we love you enormous amounts!

The rest of the day was spent riding to watch my girl’s play netball, quickly popping in to see Andrew and racing back to Dad’s place to feed the pooch.
Anh, Brooke and I had the perfect night in – thai takeaway, rosé, 10 Things I Hate About You and Sean’s homemade caramel slice.

What a classic! Bless you Heath Ledger.

Sunday began with a coffee run to meet up with Book Club over a home cooked breakfast. THANK YOU BROOKE!
Also, please do not ever read The Virgin Suicides. Or watch the movie, we made both errors.

One netball world cup final (YES AUSTRALIA!), a sneaky vino for a friend’s birthday and a fajita bowl on the couch whilst watching House of Cards; and that was my weekend, done and dusted.

I live for the weekend, and I’m sure you can see why! Gotta love these days in the sun, exercising, eating, talking absolute nonsense with the people I love most – I couldn’t ask for anything better.

I know, I’ve been a terrible blogger lately. I promise some decent content soon.

In the meantime, I’d like to discuss running.
Not running away from problems, not my pair of stockings running (although that did happen this week!) and not running out of ideas for blog posts. Just the usual, standard running.

Now, as I have mentioned before, I am not by any stretch of the imagination a running kind of gal.
I love my konga classes, can’t get enough of yoga, could ride my bike everyday and have the best time on a netball court. Running, however, has never been my forte. I can walk (at a brisk pace of course) forever, give me some decent tunes or a good podcast* and I’ll be off.
The issue that is occurring now though, is that this isn’t enough anymore. I feel the need to run, like my body kind of wants to get going, and it does sometimes, but I’ll run for a kilometre or so and give up.

THEREFORE. I have decided to sign up for a fun run to give myself some motivation. I believe that I can do it, I just need to get over these demons in my head, and I think a deadline would be a good way to challenge this.
To concrete this decision, I have conned my friend Anh into running with me, and … ahh, written a blog about it.

I thought a fun run would be a good place to start, so why not pick the funnest run of them all?